rmate

Remote TextMate 2 implemented as shell script

Description

This shell script needs to be installed on a remote machine to allow editing files using TextMate 2 (TM2). TM2 needs to be configured accordingly to accept either local or remote clients.

Local clients

It’s a good idea to allow access to TM2 only for local clients. In this case it’s required to open a SSH connection to the remote system and specify a remote tunnel in addition:

ssh -R 52698:localhost:52698 user@example.com

After log-in on the remote system a file can be edited by just executing

rmate test.txt

Remote clients

On some machines, where port forwarding is not possible, for example due to a missing ssh daemon, it’s required to set TM2 to allow access for “remote clients”. After log-in on the remote machine a file can be edited by executing

rmate -H textmate-host test.txt

Requirements

A bash with compiled support for “/dev/tcp” is required.

Usage

Edit specified file

$ ./rmate [arguments] [--] file-path

Read text from stdin

$ echo "hello TextMate" | ./rmate [arguments] -

Arguments

-H, --host HOST  Connect to HOST. Use 'auto' to detect the host from SSH.
-p, --port PORT  Port number to use for connection.
-w, --[no-]wait  Wait for file to be closed by TextMate.
-l, --line LINE  Place caret on line number after loading file.
+N               Alias for --line, if N is a number (eg.: +5).
-m, --name NAME  The display name shown in TextMate.
-t, --type TYPE  Treat file as having specified type.
-n, --new        Open in a new window (Sublime Text).
-f, --force      Open even if file is not writable.
-v, --verbose    Verbose logging messages.
-h, --help       Display this usage information.
    --version    Show version and exit.

Default parameter configuration

Some default parameters (host and port) can be configured by defining them as the environment variables RMATE_HOST and RMATE_PORT or by putting them in a configuration file. The configuration files loaded are /etc/rmate.rc and ~/.rmate.rc, e.g.:

host: auto  # prefer host from SSH_CONNECTION over localhost
port: 52698

Alternative notation for configuration file is:

host=auto
port=52698

The precedence for setting the configuration is (higher precedence counts):

default (localhost, 52698)
/etc/rmate.rc
~/.rmate/rmate.rc
~/.rmate.rc
environment variables (RMATE_HOST, RMATE_PORT)